The invention relates to a slide puzzle, comprising a rectangular playing surface, over which a number of rectangular sliding pieces are arranged such that the pieces can be moved due to an omitted missing piece which creates an empty space. The pieces can thus be moved to complete an indica, such as a picture or a word, portions of which are provided on the respective pieces.
The invention originates from a slide puzzle which is also known in the art as a game of skill. With games of skill of this sort, square sliding pieces arranged on a playing surface can be moved parallel to the sides of the frame. The shifting of the individual pieces is made possible by the fact that a sliding piece is omitted from the square sliding surface, so that pieces can be shifted into the free space to reposition the pieces. It is herewith possible, for example, to arrange the appropriate number of sliding pieces in the rectangular frame according to the desired size of the playing surface of the game.
The surfaces on the underneath and top sides of the individual pieces have sections of a picture, so that the individual pictures can be pieced together into a picture or word by shifting them. In this way it is conceivable, for example, to arrange numeric or alphabetic series on the surfaces which the player then can shift within the frame so as to put the numbers or letters in order, or individual pictures, similar to a puzzle, that can be pieced together into a picture.
It is to their disadvantage, in known games of this sort, that because one sliding piece is omitted, a portion of the indicia might therefore be absent. This is disruptive to the appearance of the slide puzzle. Furthermore, a looseness in the puzzle frame results due to the missing sliding piece, through which an independent loosening of the pieces results, so that the sliding pieces shift independently and so then the general character of the slide puzzle is not preserved. This results especially when, for example, the game of skill is carried in a pocket or on a key chain and therefore is affected by bumping or shaking. It is therefore the object of the invention to improve on a slide puzzle of this type as is known in the art, that the sorted illustrative character of this game is preserved after sorting, whereby the appearance of the slide puzzle as well as the practical use of the game be improved.